Game in Review
Can you justify your choices, Do the ends really justify the means?
These questions are at the heart of The Assembly and really are the ultimate questions that make anyone stop and take a moment before answering.
In this dark, but realistic world, The Assembly is a secretive scientific research facility that skirts around the bureaucratic red-tape often found in real world academia, industry and governmental oversight. Things that would often take years of lobbying and funding requests to get approved can be unilaterally started at The Assembly. While this is great, it comes at the cost of recklessness and potentially illegal activities.
The journey begins with you strapped to a gurney as Madeleine Stone, a renowned doctor in her field, being taken in for the most radical job interview of her life. Since she is already established in the medical field, her interview is actually a series of trials that test her logic, reasoning, and puzzle solving capabilities.
After each section of the game as Madeleine, you’ll switch to Caleb Pearson, one of the doctors already working at the facility, as you attempt to reveal a dangerously careless experiment to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). His sections play out more like a detective experience as you peruse offices and laboratories for clues and evidence.
Now the game itself plays wonderfully, all of the controls are smooth, but you really need a VR headset to move/360 view some of the objects in the game. The graphics reflect the game’s theme and make the whole place look and feel modern with a hint of futuristic that feel like it could exist today. (Hopefully not though!)
When you play as Madeleine her trials get progressively harder. I especially loved the banquet trial as it really had me scratching my head trying to figure out the answer. For me this is fantastic as the contrast between the two perspectives really make the game interesting and when you start to get bored of trapesing around the labs looking for all the evidence you need, the puzzles are right there to bring you back into thinking mode.
Sadly though not all games are perfect no matter how much we want them to be.
The Assembly says in it’s bio “But will your actions and their repercussions save lives… or lead to catastrophe?”. This statement is really misleading as it alludes to choices that will affect the game’s outcome. Well in reality that’s not strictly true with the only real choice that I have found is what personality matrix to give the game’s AI. This is disappointing as it purports to make the game out to be different with each choice you make, but in truth the game is a visual novel with some emotionally hard-to-make choices.
The main point that The Assembly let’s itself down is that it is really short. A game costing as much as it does should have extended the playtime by a few more hours. It took me just over 3 hours to finish and that was with me taking my time to explore every nook and cranny of the game. When it was over I didn’t expect it would be over that quickly. I didn’t want it to be over, but as a wise man once said “All good things must come to an end”. I hope that in the very near future nDreams will produce a sequel so that we can go back to The Assembly and see if things have changed and if they have changed for the better.
So now you’re sitting there having read this review pondering if you should get the game.
If I am being 100% honest, considering the good and the bad, yes, you should.
Although it’s short this game is a wonderful little title with all the story and explorative goodness that 4/5 Assembly Doctors recommend that you should have in your life and you should get it. Even if it is just to play it once, it really is worth it.
Source: http://www.gaming-masters.co.uk/reviews/games/pc/the-assembly/
